OUTREACH

Outreach programme to expand RX Radio’s reach/presence into other public health facilities in the Western Cape Province.

The strategy is for RX Radio to first establish a provincial-wide reach in health facilities, with the possibility of expanding nationally at a later stage. We will be piloting this approach at 5 health facilities in the Western Cape Province. We are starting with one health facility in 2019, Paarl Hospital, two health facilities in 2020 and two more in 2021.

RXH Management and the Provincial Department of Health has given the go-ahead, and the Provincial IT Department has given permission for RX Radio to stream its broadcast through the provincial cable. All the necessary equipment and technical requirements to stream the RX radio signal into the Paediatric ward at Paarl Hospital are in place.

One of the challenges for RX Radio outreach programme, is maintaining the local flavour and local child participation while catering for either a national or regional audience. To this effect RX Radio will be partnering with community radio stations servicing the area where the health facility is located, so they can support the production of local content by the Child Reporters (patients attending the hospital with chronic conditions) trained by RX Radio in each of the pilot Hospitals.

After the pilot is evaluated, and if the model is shown to work, RX Radio will strive to reach all 54 public hospitals in the Western Cape. RX Radio has entered into a partnership with KC FM, a community radio station servicing the Paarl community to help us implement the pilot at Paarl Hospital by providing support in the production of local content by the child reporters.